Breakthrough Study: Researchers Deliberately Infect Volunteers to Develop Zika Vaccine

“It is a great scientific discovery in terms of vaccine development,” said Rafael Franca, immunologist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil.

Photo: EFE – Jeffrey Arguedas

A group of researchers in the United States deliberately infected, for the first time, a group of volunteers with the Zika virus, as part of a study in which they are trying to develop a vaccine against this pathogen that has worried, for years, to the international community.

The study, which began in early 2022 and will end in 2024, seeks to determine whether controlled human infection trials can help find the elusive vaccine against this viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes of the Aedes genus.

Read also: Questions about the arrival in Colombia of “new” vaccines for covid-19.

As the scientists commented during a meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in Chicago, 28 female volunteers were recruited to see if it was possible to infect them, safely, with one of the two types of strains of the virus. All the women, the group of researchers explained, agreed to stay in a medical unit, isolated, for their safety and until they were no longer contagious.

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Zika, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), usually causes mild symptoms in humans, but can present serious congenital anomalies in babies of parents infected during pregnancy. Additionally, although cases are rare, neurological problems have been associated in adults who contracted the virus.

“It is a great scientific discovery in terms of vaccine development,” Rafael Franca, an immunologist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil, told the Nature portal.

In this way, although its prevalence in the world is low, progress is being made in the world in the development of a vaccine due to the possibility of outbreaks, particularly in areas of Latin America. Among the preliminary findings of the study led by Johns Hopkins University professor Anna Durbin, it was found that it is possible to safely infect people in a controlled environment.

It is worth noting that this type of examination is called “controlled human infection trials” (‘Human Challenge’), which seek to “investigate and understand the onset and development of the disease in a controlled environment,” explains Imperial College London. “They allow researchers to unravel complicated interactions and pinpoint potential targets for prevention, vaccines or treatment that cannot be observed in naturally infected patients.”

Given these findings, British researcher Krishanthi Subramaniam, who participates in a team developing a vaccine against the virus, believes this model can be “extremely valuable and a turning point” in the effort to test new vaccines and treatments, as she told Forbes. .

In this way, the effects of research against the virus remain to be seen, which according to the WHO, “has several countries currently experiencing outbreaks.”

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2023-10-23 21:47:00
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